Pfizer to ask FDA to authorize booster dose of COVID vaccine as Delta variant spreads

Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said the recently reported dip in the vaccine's effectiveness in Israel was mostly due to infections in people who had been vaccinated in January or February. The country's health ministry said vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% in June. (File pic shows A pregnant Brazilian woman, Vanessa Garcia, observers a nurse before receiving a dose of Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine in Sao Paulo, Brazil. - Reuters)

NEW YORK: Pfizer Inc plans to ask U.S. regulators to authorize a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine within the next month, the drugmaker's top scientist said on Thursday, based on evidence of greater risk of reinfection six months after inoculation and the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said the recently reported dip in the vaccine's effectiveness in Israel was mostly due to infections in people who had been vaccinated in January or February. The country's health ministry said vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% in June.